worst of the 80s?


I recall going to see this movie at the local multiplex back in 1986. I have no idea what attracted us, but I saw this with at least one friend. We were both, or all, appalled. Cheesy music, bad acting, and a really stupid plot were all the movie offered. A teenager graduates from high school, and he has a deed to a hotel in some small NY or New England town. One catch: he must renovate the hotel or lose it. Somehow his friends get motivated to help him renovate it, with the idea of turning it into a "rock 'n' roll hotel." Despite an early performance by Marisa Tomei, this movie was just terrible, even compared to a lot of the teen-market fare of the early and middle 1980s.

veloc

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No! This movie RULES!!!

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True, people have no tastes at all here!!!

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[deleted]

I actually love this movie, always have. I've seen this movie thousands of times over the course of my life, and probably thousands more before I die! Its awesome!

"Christopher Columbus...Your caught"

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[deleted]

Hey Captain Obvious, its called sarcasm, learn how to use! Also learn how to laugh at someone being sarcastic. Oh forgot your too busy being Captain Obvious to even think about sarcasm,or how hilarious it is....DER, you prick! And for your information, Captain Obvious, I've seen it so many times I can recite everybodys lines, word for word. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!


"Thats the REALLY, bad part!"

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[deleted]

It's exaggeration not sarcasm, you moron. Also it's "you're" not "your". I'm not surprised you love this film, it's aimed at the very lowest of the low.





I told you when I came I was a stranger

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Play nice kids!!!...lol
Anyhow i've heard of it but have never seen it...now i'm intruigued and gonna have to check it out to see whos right.
Okay so I was gonna anyhow since it was made where I used to live..wanna check out the locations...hehe

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who would had thought that PLAYING FOR KEEPS would ever cause such a heated argument in real life

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How do you figure?
If you watched it non-stop from when it was released and when you posted you could watch it about 97000 times. Given that 2000 would be thousands, it doesn't seem that hard of a duty cycle to achieve. once a day, for 6 months each year since it's been out. That doesn't seem too tough. I've spent easily that much time on the simpsons.

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I agree with you 100%. I also saw this movie hundreds of times since I'm a kid. It wasn't meant to change the world or teach an important lesson, it was just meant to entertain and it did!

"Christopher Columbus...Now Your Caught!!!"

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Guilty pleasure LOL!!!!

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I loved this movie!

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What is you signature from I just heard it the other day and can't remember where.

But Mortimer Niagra Falls.
It does?
Well let it?

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Agreed. Except for the small scene near the end where Marisa Tomei is shaking her cute ass in the aerobics class, this is one of the worst movies ever.

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how the hell did the Weinstein brothers ever get to where they are today putting out crap like this?

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Yeah, I remember seeing the TV ads for this movie all over MTV when I was 16 and thinking at that time that it looked kinda cool. Plus, I was a huge Duran Duran fan so the fact that they had the Arcadia song in it made me buy the soundtrack on cassette since that song--"Say the Word" --as not available anywhere else! But I never actually saw the movie. Thank God. I recently rented it from Netflix and finally, after all these years, found out just how big of a big turd it was. The horrible dialogue, sheer absurdity of the plot, and bad acting overall made for such a cringe-inducing experience that I couldn't even enjoy the sheer 80's nostalgia factor of it. Seeing it all these years later made me realize just how gratuitously teen-targeted it was at the time it was actually released. The Wienstein Bros. must have thought that the teenagers of that time were pretty stupid in order to gleefully consume this crap.

Gawd... even 'Just one of the Guys' was better than this cinematic crud. Thumbs down!!!

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Had seen the trailer for this a thousand times (uh oh, here comes that number again) at the back end of some other video release I had purchased as a kid. It was playing on Encore this morning and I figured I'd finally sit down and watch it.

Errr, yeah...even for 80s cheese, this was in the "appallingly heinous" vein. Never thought it could be possible for an 80s film, notorious for their schmaltz levels, to be even more atrociously so.

Though I do now have a post-dated crush on Mary B. Ward.

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Just caught some of this mess yesterday--don't remember who was showing it--and it never really grabbed me.

IMO, a big part of what's wrong with this movie is that the filmmakers took all the elements that made 80s movies 80s movies--teenagers in an unrealistic scenario, musical montages/dance numbers out of nowhere, raging hormones, weird/angry adults, etc., and gave them the Will It Blend treatment. Just 'cause you *can* cram all that stuff in there together doesn't mean you should, especially when you don't know why you're doing it.

It doesn't seem like the guys behind this movie had a clue what made those elements work in movies like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Fast Times, etc. John Hughes was probably watching these guys at the time and shaking his head sadly for them.

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"Cheesy music, bad acting, and a really stupid plot were all the movie offered."

Um, apparently you haven't seen too many 80's Comedies. Because you just explained the 80's in one sentence, buddy. Television, music and film were all cheesy throughout the 80's. As much as they tried not to be, they were. As for being the "worst of the 80's"...that must be according to the amount of films YOU have personally seen. Try watching Beach Fever, Computer Beach Party, A Polish Vampire In Burbank, etc. and see if that statement still stands. This movie was actually great and the acting wasn't all that bad considering the gratuitous amount of "bad" 80's flicks there are out there. I watched this movie for what it was, cheesy 80's fun, which is what most 80's Comedies are. But before you start calling it terrible, or even "the worst of the 80's", take a shot at some films that actually deserve that title, 'cause you're only showcasing your undereducated taste in films.

I also find it funny that Google Chrome considers "undereducated" to be an incorrect word. Whoever they chose to program their spell check needs an IQ test.

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That's a valiant defense of the '80s, as well as a justified criticism of the Google Chrome spellchecker (sometimes prefixes perplex the software). I found this to be a very enjoyable film with a pleasant cast and a great soundtrack. It's far from the best of the '80s, but it's even further from the worst. 6/10 stars from me.

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I was a teen in the 80's.
this movie is awesome!!

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